irony

after searching 5 kms of nh-4 for a place to lunch at, we finally found a place that served barely-edible bhurji and omlette, with a 1 hour wait time.

and we then find the most humongously sized mcDonalds a few thousand metres from it.

in the end, we had 2 lunches :P

did you just say twitter?

twitter is somehow creeping up in the scale of things that make up my life these days. it's probably partly because i've met a few (nice) people from twitter, and they really turned out to be as good, if not better, than they seemed to be online.

but i think it's also got something to do with what people are using twitter for these days.

some time ago, i was telling a close friend about twitter. he didn't quite know what it was (yes, there are actually a lot of people like that), so i tried explaining it to him.

now if you'd ask me "what is twitter?" a couple of years (or even a few months) ago, i'd typically have come up with something on the lines of "micro blogging" - which it is, in a way...but somehow isn't a very nice answer to give someone. especially if that someone doesn't blog. or worse still, doesn't read blogs (yes, i actually explained what is a blog to someone a couple of months ago...i had to actually show her my blog before she understood!!!).

so i tried a new explanation this time:

twitter is a social network.

my friend immediately cut me off with "NOT AGAIN!!!"

i persisted:

twitter is a social network with exactly 3 features:

1. you can follow other users, users can follow you, it doesn't have to be mutual.
2. users post messages either privately or publicly. public messages go to everyone who follows them. private messages go only to a specific user.
3. twitter is flexibile in all points other than the above two: users don't need to be people, posting/reading posts can be using any system, most interestingly sms/mobile web/messenger/browser plugins, etc etc.

he hasn't joined yet, but i'm not taking any bets on how long he takes to sign up :)

meta days

the past week or so has had a disproportionately large number of "meta days" - days which somehow, by their content make me reflect and understand the rest of my life, and give me that nirvanic feeling. not just peace, but singularity. the feeling of knowing where you fit in the universe, and finding yourself in that exact place.

like a few days ago, ralston's blog prompted me to say:

i can't define happiness. the only thing that i know about it is that it finds me only when i'm not looking for it.

--kris

and then a few days later, a friend and i were just chatting over a couple of drinks, and he was telling me how thoroughly he was enjoying himself thanks to him getting back to playing the guitar. it seems all his life he used to play because he wanted to be better than the rest, but he's suddenly discovered the joy of just playing for himself - experimenting in his own ways, trying to pick up new songs, and even saving up for a better (but secondhand) guitar.

and somehow, in that moment, something fell into place. i realised where i am. i'm in the exact same place as he is. i've stopped living for the future, or for the people around me. i'm back to embracing the moment, but this time more than ever before. doing things because they please me, and nothing else. loving people because i want to, not because i hope they'll love me back (something which i never thought possible by the way).

i realise that this is not a sustainable state of affairs (for example, i'm now overspending and undersleeping, overeating and underworking - tons of things like that), but still, it's the ultimate high: living for yourself.

oh and did i forget, i've been listening to awesome music too? mostly trance, but a lot of odds and ends too :)

location is everything

few new terms and some old (but rather uncommon) ones:

wfw = working from work (what you should be doing when you're at work)
hfh = homing from home (what you should be doing when you're not at work)
wfh = working from home (self explanatory)
hfw = homing from work (when you sit in the office and do things you're supposed to do at home)

sonu!

you know you're a real gem of a person if 3 of your friends happen to start chatting (separately) about unrelated topics and yet within 10 minutes of each other the topic changes to how much they miss you.

you're a gem sonu, a priceless one.

ps: the friends involved are vimal and joylyn :)

the future is futile

school life: everything is free
college life: the best things in life are free
work life: junk all the free stuff because you feel you can pay

-- kris

it's hard to live like a college student when your bank balance goes up and the time you have left goes down every month, but i'm trying :)

had a blast: check

this weekend's trip was very different from my usual ones, mainly because i set off without any planning whatsoever. i just turned up in pune on saturday morning and started calling up people to make programs. and this was despite having fixed the date over a month ago. surprisingly, it actually worked, and i managed to do almost everything i set out to!!!

bike to pune: check
learn the route from bbay to pune: check
meet my relatives (apeksha, anshul and gang): check
meet renata: check
meet deepesh: check
meet gaurang: check
meet mitul: check
meet anurag and leena: check
meet adwait: uncheck
meet shweta: check
meet aditi: uncheck
meet/wine tasting with (the other) aditi: uncheck
meet/wine tasting with michelle: uncheck
go wine tasting: check
bike around and explore pune: check
eat good food: check
booze: uncheck

that gives me a score if 11 out of 16...not bad at all for an unplanned trip!!!

in command

strange as it may sound, it's fun being commando. probably not while wearing jeans or whatever, but maybe while chilling out in shorts or tracks. i roam around my colony commando all the time, but i've always kept it a secret, thinking i was the only one with this quirk and that people may think i'm a weirdo.

that was till a few weeks ago. my friend asked if i wanted to step out (sometime around midnight) for a short drive.

we drove around the colony, tried to follow a hottie who fell flat on her face while walking on the road (in the hope of getting a good look at her face and finding out where she lives...yes, all men love doing that :P), and finally ran out of things to do. my friend then suggested we drop in at his brother's place - apparently he was having some sort of house party.

i protested: i'm not dressed up for a party (i was wearing shorts and a faded tee)

he countered that he was dressed as badly as i was.

i protested: we'll get late, i have work tomorrow.

he countered that he had to report to work 3 hours before i did.

after a great deal of hesitation, i finally told him:

"but dude, i'm commando!!!"

apparently, so was he.

the party was fun, but i didn't dare dance...and i had to be very very careful while kissing the birthday girl ;)

my secret

i'm a fucked up person. i will always be. but you won't ever realize it unless you're less fucked up than i am.

free

some people let me do whatever i want to because they don't care.

others do it because they think i know what's best for myself.

my life holds itself together because of people who fall into neither category.

thanks for being there...i may not speak of it often, but i wouldn't be able to live without you :)

terrorism win

the terrorists have succeeded.

i've always preached a lifestyle devoid of fear, much less terror...and i live by it too.

unfortunately for me, it seems terrorism can win without fear or terror.

i biked to daman a couple of days ago with my friend apoorv and a tent. it was a nice but long ride (170km to be accurate), when we finally reached the place, which i must add, was a rather well maintained tourist spot, and which made up for it's lack of natural tourist-unfriendliness (the beach was muddy, nay, mucky!) by having clean roads, well lit and architecturally beautiful street sides and monuments, and friendly locals with a chilled out attitude. but in the end it didn't matter.

our first brush with authority was while entering daman. a couple of cops waved us to the side of the road on account of our large bag. we stopped, showed them our bag and explained what was in it and what we were planning to do, had some friendly chitchat about our backgrounds, and rode off after thanking them for their vigilance.

unfortunately that experience was the best to come.

our next brush with authority (my friend's, actually, because i had rode off with my camera looking for interesting places while he caught an early-evening post-drinks siesta) was very unpalatable to say the least.

to cut things short, we were rudely shooed off the beach, bags, baggage, and hurriedly rolled up tent in tow, citing security reasons. apparently camping on the beach is prohibited in daman, due to orders from "higher ups", who we have not taken "permission" from, and who are "not available" to give permission.

the strangest part is that other people were allowed onto the beach more than 3 hours later, well after dark, and the cops themselves were sitting around at their vantage point that could barely cover 1/3rd of the beach - which was the brightly lit up section.

we were a harmless pair of civil adults, who were willing to be watched/searched/identified, who just wanted to stay on the beach for a night. the cops would be there all night (if not, i guess all this surveillance would be meaningless), and we were staying in a brightly lit area where they could keep an eye on us from any appreciable distance.

now there's talk of all christmas/new year celebrations being called off. and that includes in goa, where i'm supposed to celebrate the new year.

i just hope all these harebrained "security measures" actually deter terrorists...because if they're half as intelligent as i am they'll find atleast a dozen ways to get in without being spotted. like the dark sections of the beach. far away from the cops. and also, keep a couple of accomplices to keep an eye on the cops, who are probably going to be dozing at their stations a few hours later.

i think i'm finally pissed off with terrorists. and if there's a terrorist act anywhere near me after having already ruined my few and much required vacations, i'm gonna be super-pissed with the authorities too.

the terrorists have succeeded.

howdy!!!

i occasionally come up with conversational nuggets that seem too cool to have not been thought up by anyone before. like a few days ago:

t: howdy?
k: not so dowdy!

strangely enough, google doesn't seem to back me up. which means it could actually be something freshly coined by me. which also means you could notch up your coolness quotient a couple of points by slipping it into conversation with me or anyone who appreciates the finer points of the queen's language :)

ps: usage should be self explanatory. if you can't figure what dowdy means, please go stand in a corner and look at a wall. :P